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PENGUIN BOOKS

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published in Spanish by Taurus Publishing, Spain 2013
This English translation published by Allen Lane 2015
Published in Penguin Books 2016

Cover design: gray318

The moral right of the authors has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-241-18700-5

Preface: The Book Most Travelled

Introduction

A NEW PARADIGM IS BORN

1 Back to Basics

THE HUMAN ANIMAL

2 The Reptilian Always Wins

3 Time, Space and Energy

4 The Ideal Scenario

C² = CULTURE CODES

5 The Five Critical Moves

6 The Third Unconscious

BE BIO-LOGICAL

7 The Four S’s

8 Survival

9 Sex

10 Security

11 Success

THE R² MOBILITY INDEX

12 Is Your Country Moving Up?

Conclusion: Voting With Your Feet

Notes

Bibliography

Glossary

Appendices

Illustration Credits

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

Dr Clotaire Rapaille

I would like to dedicate this book to all the men and women who helped mankind move up. From the first human being who stood up on two feet to Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. We are just at the beginning of the journey.

I want to thank the few who have inspired me throughout my life. As a young teenager, it was Voltaire, Descartes, Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville. Then, as I grew up, Levi Strauss, Henri Laborit, Ruth Benedict and Edward T. Hall.

But most of all, there is a baby girl who was born recently in one of the worst places in Africa. This book is for her. She is the future of this planet and I am sure that one day she will teach the new generation how to move up.

Dr Andrés Roemer

To my immortal beloved ones:

Alejandro, David, Valeria;

Fanny, Oscar;

Nadia;

and Pamela.

I wish you – and future generations – a world free of shackles and full of enlightenment

In memory of Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011.

Preface: The Book Most Travelled

It is trite but true that every book is like a child’s birth: some have a simple and fast delivery, others not so much. This book took years to fully develop.

We first thought of writing it in 2009, during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. As we celebrated Clotaire’s wife Missy’s birthday, we raised our glasses to the idea of a new social mobility index, an indicator that would not only reflect what a country does in terms of mobility and prosperity for its citizens, but would also incorporate variables that can truly promote social mobility among people and nations. These are the bio-cultural variables: the C² and bio-logical variables that are discussed in this book. Our vision kept cropping up throughout Missy’s birthday celebration, and the WEF conferences failed to touch on the topic, leaving us with unanswered questions: how can we move up? What moves us, and what allows us to move?

We continued to discuss the topic after our stay in Switzerland, sharing our experiences and discoveries, and each time finding something new. From Paris to Mexico, Mexico to Miami, Miami to New York, and again in Paris; our quest for answers became an obsession and we kept digging. (See the Bibliography for a full list of the books where many of our theories and ideas in Move UP have come from.)

While working on this book, we’ve both travelled around the world and talked with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds. During our travels we noticed a powerful archetype that exists in all cultures, and serves as a trustworthy indicator of the evolution of a given culture. This archetype is encapsulated in the phrase ‘move up’. It is a multi-faceted notion and the most definitive indicator of well-being. In most cultures, a strong sense of social, financial and physical growth is closely linked to the sense of mobility and vitality that a given culture has. Cultures that understand what it means to move up have a firm place on the global stage.

Indeed, this is a book about the biggest question we can ask: ‘Who are we?’ When we ask this, we are asking: ‘How can we live a more meaningful life?’ or ‘How can we move up?’ This is a critically important question, one that leads many people to read self-help books, to diet, enter therapy, join religious groups, to exercise, to meditate or to practise yoga. In this book we will show that those individuals, cultures, societies and countries that understand movement most are much more likely to express themselves in a creative way: innovating, transforming their environment, and making a positive impact on society.

This is not an academic text, rather a book for the curious. It’s not about the economic growth of countries, or a self-help book that will give you tricks for succeeding. We’re not trying to measure social mobility, since many capable sociologists, economists and anthropologists continually attempt to do so. Move UP is about uncovering the reasons why some cultures move more than others.

What Move UP proposes is a comprehensive answer to the question of why: why do some people have the opportunity to move in the directions they want to, while others don’t? Why are some societies more mobile than others? Why do people move up and others seem to stay static? These are not easy questions, and therefore the answers cannot be easy either. So let’s get moving.

Clotaire Rapaille and Andrés Roemer

MOVE UP

Why Some Cultures Advance and Others Don’t

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

THE BEGINNING

MOVE UP

Preface: The Book Most Travelled